It starred Virginia Madsen as Helen Lyle, a Chicago Grad Student doing a thesis on urban legends, and Tony Todd in a career defining role as the titular boogeyman. The following year it hit home video and my friends and I (probably in our final year of Junior High at the time) finally got around to seeing it. I still remember going over to my buddy Joey’s apartment on a Saturday night, his dad, Bruce had rented it for us to watch (Thanks Bruce). I still remember the “ooooh shit” moment we both had as soon as the opening credits started playing and Philip Glass’ brilliantly haunting score began to blare out of the surround sound. We knew were in for something frightening and different. Turns out, it was one of the scariest movies we had seen in a long time.

As children we all had fears, rational and irrational. Some of us feared sharks in the ocean, spiders in our hair, the boogeyman waiting in the closet, the monster under the bed, or some just simply afraid of the dark. These fears are rather common in our early years; however, these fears have the potential to be enhanced when a horror film is introduced to our young and highly impressionable psyche. This brings us to another common if not irrational fear, one shared by both children and adults alike: pediophobia, the fear of dolls.